Why To Move In Teams.
Inexorable
Join Date: 2002-09-28 Member: 1360Members
Join Date: 2002-09-28 Member: 1360Members
<div class="IPBDescription">It's math, but you can trust me.</div> As anyone who's messed with RTSs can tell you, the general effectiveness of a unit is the amount of damage it can do, multiplied by the time over which it can do that damage. For our intrepid marines, that's the damage you do with your weapon per second, multiplied by the number of seconds you'll live in combat.
Now, if we assume that all marines have approximately the same life expectancy once they get into combat, a single marine will get an "effectiveness" rating of 1.
Let's consider a pair of marines though. As they run down the corridor they meet some enemy force. The aliens rush up to marine one and kill him. In this time, he was able to use his 1 effectiveness to hurt the enemy. Marine 2 however was also able to do his damage, and isn't dead yet. Marine 2 will die shortly, but because he lived twice as long as marine one, he has an overall effectiveness rating of 2. This continues linearly, the 3rd marine getting an effectiveness of 3, the 4th 4 and so on.
One can easily see that the overall effectiveness of the group goes up very quickly by adding only a few members. In fact, a 4 man team is ~10 times as effective as a single marine.
Things can get complex though if the aliens decide to spread damage around instead of concentrating on one marine at a time.
Lets say in our first example that it was 2 marines vs 2 Skulks, with both Skulks attacking marine 1, then marine 2. Now imagine if they split up and attacked each marine seperately. Since each marine is taking half the damage (1 Skulk attacking as opposed to 2) they will live twice as long. Their effectiveness is based on their life expectancy, so each marine gets his effectiveness doubled. (the calculation may seem a little shady, but trust me) Now you have 2 marines, each with an effectiveness of 2 in combat. Because the aliens decided to spread the damage around, they added 1 effectiveness to the group of marines.
This same concept works in reverse, so remember marines <i>focus fire</i>.
Beware of area damage though. Instead of spreading damage around like the 2 Skulks, things like Acid Rocket and Spore Cloud will multiply their damage to accomodate the extra marines. This has the effect of reducing your effectiveness drastically. Imagine instead our pair of marines facing a Fade. Now, one marine against a Fade would simply suck acid rocket death. He still has an effectiveness of 1 though (as it is our baseline). If we add another marine, and have him stick close to his buddy, both marines will be attacked at the same time. Unlike with the Skulks the Fade will end up doing more damage (120 total, as opposed to 60 vs the one marine), so the marines do not benefit from the life expectancy increase of our last example. Each marine ends up with our baseline effectiness, for 2 overall.
There you go, mathematical proof of these simple combat rules:<ul>
<li>Team Up
<li>Spread Out
<li>Focus Fire
</ul>
Now, if we assume that all marines have approximately the same life expectancy once they get into combat, a single marine will get an "effectiveness" rating of 1.
Let's consider a pair of marines though. As they run down the corridor they meet some enemy force. The aliens rush up to marine one and kill him. In this time, he was able to use his 1 effectiveness to hurt the enemy. Marine 2 however was also able to do his damage, and isn't dead yet. Marine 2 will die shortly, but because he lived twice as long as marine one, he has an overall effectiveness rating of 2. This continues linearly, the 3rd marine getting an effectiveness of 3, the 4th 4 and so on.
One can easily see that the overall effectiveness of the group goes up very quickly by adding only a few members. In fact, a 4 man team is ~10 times as effective as a single marine.
Things can get complex though if the aliens decide to spread damage around instead of concentrating on one marine at a time.
Lets say in our first example that it was 2 marines vs 2 Skulks, with both Skulks attacking marine 1, then marine 2. Now imagine if they split up and attacked each marine seperately. Since each marine is taking half the damage (1 Skulk attacking as opposed to 2) they will live twice as long. Their effectiveness is based on their life expectancy, so each marine gets his effectiveness doubled. (the calculation may seem a little shady, but trust me) Now you have 2 marines, each with an effectiveness of 2 in combat. Because the aliens decided to spread the damage around, they added 1 effectiveness to the group of marines.
This same concept works in reverse, so remember marines <i>focus fire</i>.
Beware of area damage though. Instead of spreading damage around like the 2 Skulks, things like Acid Rocket and Spore Cloud will multiply their damage to accomodate the extra marines. This has the effect of reducing your effectiveness drastically. Imagine instead our pair of marines facing a Fade. Now, one marine against a Fade would simply suck acid rocket death. He still has an effectiveness of 1 though (as it is our baseline). If we add another marine, and have him stick close to his buddy, both marines will be attacked at the same time. Unlike with the Skulks the Fade will end up doing more damage (120 total, as opposed to 60 vs the one marine), so the marines do not benefit from the life expectancy increase of our last example. Each marine ends up with our baseline effectiness, for 2 overall.
There you go, mathematical proof of these simple combat rules:<ul>
<li>Team Up
<li>Spread Out
<li>Focus Fire
</ul>
Comments
On a side note, is your sig a quote from Lullaby? It sounds a *lot* like a Palahniuk thing. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> I just finished reading Lullaby, and it seems extremely familiar.
<!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> + <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> + <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> is really =
<!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo-->
Stick-ay!
It's from Fight Club, not Lullaby.
We stuck together as marines today in a game.
The aliens had 3 hives, it was hopless. The comm had 150ish rps, so he gave 1 person HA HMG Welder, and another HA GL Welder. Then a bunch of marines were able to support and keep them alive and we got to the hive, wiped it out.
We faced 2 ONOs on the way, but as Inexorable said we did
Team Up
Spread Out
Focus Fire
It was in the mess hall of nancy and the cargo bay 2, one onos each place, so it was easy to spread and focus!
After that we took down port, then shortly after subspace, then port got re-taken, so I got back to base and got HA HMG Welder, so there were now 3 ppl <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Then we went along and slowly destroyed the other hives, and found one ONOs sitting at the last one, again, with the group we had, the spread out around un-named and killed it easy!
Basiclly, as his equation goes, id say an HA, etc guy has an effectivness of 5, so since NONE of us died, it was 5 x 20 mins(ish)! thats a lot!
The LAs stuck together as well, and were able to kill LOTS of others, so in effect, grouping DOES work, even at the 3rd hive stage, which incedently, was the only time people thought " ****, if I don't stick with my m8s, there is NO chance in hell i'll take out that ONOs or bilebombing fade! "So they did <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
It's from Fight Club, not Lullaby.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> I picked up my copy of Fight Club this afternoon and found the quote almost right away. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
It's from Fight Club, not Lullaby.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> I picked up my copy of Fight Club this afternoon and found the quote almost right away. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Great movie. A female freind of mine likes to curl up and watch it in her PJ's with a cup of tea, why I can't imagine. Makes her feel good I guess.
<a href='http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/fight_club.html' target='_blank'>More Fight Club quotes.</a>
Anyway, Kilmster is right in that there are quite a few variables not covered there. This was mostly for ease of demonstration and the fact I was about to be late for work when writing it.
Things such as our Skulk/marine example. Once the Skulks finish chomping on marine 1, they aren't going to have to run down another hallway to get to marine 2. Therefore M2's life expectancy isn't actually double that of M1's. (you could offset this of course by backing away from the Skulks as they chomp on your buddy)
It also doesn't cover what happens if the marines start missing their target because another marine got in their line of fire. More than once I've blown off most of a clip only to see 90% of it hit the back of the marine in front of me either because of the aliens movement or because he strafed in front of me.
Case in point: I was comm on Nothing and sent out a squad of 7 marines to take out Powersilo. It was far enough in the game that I had almost all of them in HA, with HMGs/GLs/Shotties. As the approached the hive from the south, 2-3 Fades came out to meet them. My marines were decimated because only the 2 in front could actually get any shots off while the Fades were happily lobbing Acid down the hall without even having to aim.
So you have to be careful with this. With the size of most maps, once you get past groups of 2-3, you can actually start to <i>lose</i> efficiency. If you're fighting in a large open area, or the group is organized enough to co-ordinate fire and stay out of eachothers way you might get away with 4-5 but past that you aren't getting any real use out of the extra marines. Have them go do something else instead.
I've been disconnected from the net for over a month, and only get to command once every 30 or so games (I usually get randomed onto Kharaa). I've also found I'm a much better shot than a commander. I often find myself in the position of knowing the theory, but rusty with the execution.
Spore clouds have a large area effect -and- a fairly high firing rate.
Marines are likely not to be able to spread out wide enough to reduce spore cloud effectiveness. Even a large marine base can be spored entirely in a matter of seconds, hallways are even worse.
Marines have all of two types of area effect weapons: grenades and sieges, where siege area effect damage to alien creatures is largely accidental.
Marines have only one 'real' area effect weapon. For comparison i'd say marines have at best a total of 1 and 1/2 area effect weapons.
Aliens have 3 'true' area effect weapons (acid, bile, spores)
At any given time in the game there are likely more aliens with area effect weapons then marines.
So Marines have more area effect threats to deal with than Aliens. Thus for the aliens spreading out is more effective than it is for marines.
Now, this is going to get even more abstract, so I hope I don't lose anybody.
First, some definitions:
A "stock" marine will do 1 damage/sec, and have 1 sec of health. (I know it's a little odd to measure health in seconds, but it works very well for the calculations we're going to be doing.) Now, if you remember, "effectiveness" is damage*health, or (damage/sec)*(sec). This ends up being units of pure damage. This is what my first post was working off of, but I figured it would be good to spell it out.
In addition, this gives us an easy way to compare groups. We can simply measure the damage they do, convert to effectiveness and voila, instant comparison.
And just for reference:
1 stock marine = 1 effectiveness
2 stock marines = 3 effectiveness
3 stock marines = 6 effectiveness
4 stock marines = 10 effectiveness
5 stock marines = 15 effectiveness
Now, lets look at what effects HA and HMG have on effectiveness:
A HMG doubles damage/sec over the LMG at all upgrade levels, and therefore will double the total effectiveness of whichever marine holds it.
HA on the other hand changes its relative worth with every upgrade, so we'll just look at base upgrade for this post. Now as anybody who's been a Skulk snack knows, marines only survive 2 bites. A Skulk does 75 damage/bite, for 150 total. Due to some armor issues, this is very close to the health of a marine. HA is different though; each armor point can take 2 damage, and then there's 100 health left over. 100 health * (200 armor * 2) = 500 total health. This increases the marines life expectancy by about a factor of 3.
Ok, on to the example.
___________________________
Let's create a group of 3 marines. 2 are stock, one is HA/HMG. We're going to look at two scenarios, one in which the stock marines die first, and one in which the HMG/HA marine dies first.
In the first example, the stock marines will die first. After the first second one marine dies (I told you measuring health in seconds would come in handy), the next marine dies one second later, and the HA marine dies three seconds after that.
So we get:
M1 = 1 second
M2 = 2 seconds
HA = 5 seconds
We must also remember that the HA marine counts double because of his HMG. So the total effectiveness is [1 + 2 + (5*2)] = 13, or a little better than twice the effectiveness of a 3 man stock group.
Flip it around though. If the HA marine takes point we get the following lifetimes:
HA = 3 seconds
M1 = 4 seconds
M2 = 5 seconds
Or - [(3*2) + 4 + 5] = 15 effectiveness. Not too bad, we've managed to squeeze a few more effectiveness points out of our group simply by having the HA marine in the lead.
I'm sure at this point some of you are starting to see tactical implications from this, but let's look at one more example:
Imagine that instead of giving both HA/HMG to the same marine, we give the HMG to one, and the HA to another, here's what we get if we have the HA marine in front and M1 guarding the HMG marine:
HA = 3 seconds
M1 = 4 seconds
HMG = 5 seconds
This gives us [3 + 4 + (5*2)], or 19 effectiveness.
Interesting, no?
Essentially what we have proven is that you want your heavily armored troops to die first, and your well armed marines dying last. You can add a few points to the effectiveness of any combat group simply by spreading the wealth a bit.
but then, as always, a theorized statement put into effect may have a suprising outcome. Plus, there are many other factors to put into. Usually the acid rockets just wreak havoc and everyone dies at once so the effectiveness adding up from time spent from the other guy soaking up damage doesnt exactly work.
this is why math sucks =P
Ohhh how about: HA+LMG HMG+JP
The JP will last ALOT longer than the HA if the target is fighting the HA, he can weld up afterwards only worth it if you can afford the 25 research but it'll pay for itself after 2 JP? and your intire squad will move out at a silly speed 1.04 acctually may aswell give the HA a shotty won't slow him down and he's gonna be close quaters with fades.
Course you need good JPers. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
BlueGhost
Maybe i didn't expres myself clearly enough:
My point is simply that aliens can and usually do more area effect damage than marines because they have more such weapons. (in general, area effect weapons are more powerfull because they are area effect).
So marines are weaker in the area effect department. This would not be a problem if marines would have something to compensate this weakness. But i'm not sure that they have. Speed? at least half my health is gone by the time i clear a spore cloud. Amor? spores eat right through for the most part.
To put in another way: marines need spreading out more than aliens. But there's only so much spreading out you can do in these hallways, and/or when attacked by spores (even in large rooms it's hard to get away from spores).
If one marine is spraying at one skulk, his accuracy might be 10%(even #)
2 marines vs 2 skulks get 10% on EACH..menaning 20% on both skulks
5 v 5 means 50% on all skulks, simply because the marines swarm bullets.
If we consider one skulk being capable of killing one marine, 5v5 will end up n a loss for marines, UNLESS some of the 200 million bullets that misses primary target and hits another target